Practical Applications of the Turing Test
by sqbr
Summary: A perfectly innocent and entirely human woman turns up at the house Chell has been living in since she escaped Aperture. Chell/GlaDOS.
1. Chapter 1

The woman lay quietly, barely breathing. She had a nasty looking wound on her leg, Chell had tried to clean it but she was no doctor. It probably didn't matter.

Though the fabric was stained and torn, the bright orange jumpsuit she'd been wearing when Chell found her was unmistakeable. Once Chell removed the sodden jumpsuit the woman's wounds, too, were familiar, acid burns and bulletholes in various stages of repair covering a gaunt pale body. The woman was a testing subject, like Chell, which meant that she was almost certainly doped up to the eyeballs with medications to keep her alert, to help her heal, to make her pliant. Like all successful Aperture products, these medications did their job, the woman would probably heal within the day, but they came at great cost. If anything killed her, it would be the withdrawal.

Chell finished winding makeshift bandages around the woman's leg and carefully straightened the scavenged clothes she'd dressed her in before pulling over the blanket. Who was this woman? She hadn't said anything when Chell found her, just looked up at her with a dazed, beatific smile before falling into unconsciousness. She looked vaguely familiar, probably one of the scientists Chell had met visiting the Centre with her father, but it had been so long since Chell had seen any other humans it was hard to tell. Her straight shoulder length hair had seemed black then, as she lay in the mud of the lake shore in the early morning light, but after being rinsed and dried it had proven itself to be light brown streaked with grey. She seemed relatively young, perhaps 25 or 30, but her pale face was lined with tension even in sleep.

Another testing subject. Chell had thought she was the last. GlaDOS had lied. Wheatley had lied, and lied successfully, which was rather more surprising. Why had he gone through that ridiculous pantomime with the walking cubes if he had other humans to test on? How many others were there, still trapped? What was GlaDOS doing to them? And to think Chell had almost felt sorry for the AI, trapped in that building all alone. Had even thought GlaDOS might have changed after being reminded of her origins as a human being. And yet here she was, torturing others as she had tortured Chell. Despite herself, Chell felt a stab of disappointment.

The woman remained asleep all day, though her body twitched and she made strange noises in her sleep. While she waited for the woman to wake up Chell went through her usual routine: check the fish nets, fill the water filter, tend the garden. She didn't go on any explorations looking for abandoned houses to loot for supplies, though, or forage for food in the woods or fields. Instead she limited herself to tasks she could do around the house, that let her stick her head into the room and check on her patient every hour or two. She really didn't want the woman to die. Chell had been alone for a _very_ long time.

It was only when Chell carefully shifted the woman over to climb into bed herself that she showed signs of waking.

The woman frowned and, still asleep, pushed back against Chell, pulling the blankets around herself tighter. Chell laughed a little, putting a hand over her mouth to stifle the noise. Anyone with the will to keep the bed to themselves was probably strong enough that they weren't going to die.

It was hard to make anything out in the dark, even with a full moon, but was she...blinking?

Chell held her breath. The woman turned her head and...yes, opened her eyes. "_Chell_," she said, happily.

"Yes," said Chell. It was the first word she had said to another person in what felt like forever. How did the woman know her name? Yet another question, hopefully one that would be answered soon.

"You saved me," said the woman. She seemed _very_ familiar now, something about her accent and tone of voice resonated deep in Chell's psyche. She could feel her heart rate quicken, and her stomach tightened with a mixture of anticipation and fear. "Good."

"It...I...it is very cold," said Chell. Constructing sentences felt like some arcane skill she had nearly forgotten. "Would you mind..." Sharing the bed had seemed like a good idea when the woman was asleep, shivering and ill, but it felt impossibly presumptuous now. "I will go find somewhere else to sleep," said Chell, trying to decide if it would be better to make up a mattress in this room or lock herself into one of the others. Now that the woman was awake Chell's finely honed sense of paranoia had started to kick into overdrive. What did she really know about this woman? Could she be trusted? How did she know Chell's name? What reason did she have to trust Chell herself? It was impossible to survive a place like Aperture without being changed into something sharp and dangerous.

"You're leaving me again," said the woman, her soft voice cracking and tinged with accusation.

"No," said Chell. "Not...not if you want me to stay." The woman reached towards her with a thin pale hand and held her wrist, her eyes large and expectant. She was surprisingly strong, Chell could have pulled away but not without an effort. She decided not to try. Instead she pulled back the blanket and slid into bed beside the woman.

She was so _warm_. Chell resisted the urge to curl up closer to the first human contact she'd had in years (decades? Subjectively it was shorter than that, of course. Or at least it should be), only to have the woman wrap her arms around Chell tightly and make a happy sound of contentment. Part of Chell felt stifled, almost trapped, but it was also deeply comforting to be held. She hadn't felt this way...not since highschool. Perhaps not since she was a child, before her parents died.

And yet she did not feel safe. Some instinct was keeping her wide awake, telling her to run. She turned within the woman's arms to face her. Her eyes glistened dark and unknowable in the moonlight.

"Who are you?" asked Chell, quietly. She felt acutely aware of the other woman's body, it's sharp angles and unexpected softnesses, the inescapable pressure of the woman's hands against her back.

The woman remained silent, staring. "I..." she began. She closed her eyes suddenly and ducked down her head. "I'm sick, I need to sleep."

Chell frowned. The woman was clearly dodging the question. She thought about shaking her awake again, but regardless of the woman's sincerity she _was_ very ill, and Chell was tired herself. She did not fall asleep for a long time, though, instead she lay awake, listening to the strange woman breathe, the warmth of her like an extra blanket against Chell's skin.

* * *

Chell awoke with a start and found herself alone in bed, with only a thin sheet left to cover her. There were loud banging noises coming from the kitchen. She grabbed the nail studded baseball bat she kept below the bed and padded quietly towards the commotion. It was still dark, sunrise wouldn't be for hours, but she knew the way.

Chell found her houseguest standing by the sideboard, wrapped in the blanket and doing something in the sink. Around her were all of Chell's neatly organised bottles and jars, now in disarray, opened and in some cases emptied. As she stepped into the room there was a crunch as her feet crushed against the dried herbs and beans that lay scattered on the floor. Worse, there were _two_ of Chell's carefully scavenged candles lit in jars by the window, casting strange shadows against the walls.

"Hungry, huh?" said Chell, with some annoyance, leaning across to snuff out one of the candles.

"Ymmph," said the woman. She was chewing on something, probably beef jerky. Meanwhile her hands were busy trying to use a can opener to open a can of peaches Chell had been saving for a special occasion. She was having real trouble: her hands kept shaking, and were slick with syrup and what looked like blood.

Chell sighed and put her hand on the woman's shoulder. "I'll open it," she said. The seal had been broken, there was no point saving it now. She leaned the baseball bat against a cupboard.

The woman swallowed. "Your can opener is broken," she said, before giving Chell the can and opener and wiping her hands on her shirt. Chell's shirt, though the woman made it look much bigger. She was very thin, no wonder she was hungry.

"Right." Chell grabbed a teatowel and wiped off the mess before opening the tin and pouring half of it into a cup, which she then handed to the woman.

The woman poured half the contents of the cup into her mouth and then choked as she tried to chew. She looked so mortified at the indignity of having to spit some of the peaches back into the cup that Chell had to stop herself from laughing.

"I know you're hungry," said Chell, "but you can't just go eating whatever you want. If you're going to stay here..." Chell was suddenly reminded of various foster parents, explaining the rules of the house and treating her like a delinquent until proven innocent. But it's not like she had any better role models. "If you're going to stay here you have to do it by my rules, ok? And that means no opening my tins without asking, they're hard to find. No making a mess in the kitchen at four in the morning, either."

Just for a moment Chell experienced an intense wave of hostility from the woman. Then she gave a thin smile. "Your house, your rules. Of course. I wouldn't want to be rude."

"Come on," said Chell, before picking up the baseball bat again, snuffing out the second candle and opening the kitchen door so they could sit outside on the porch.

Chell sat down on the porch chair and waited. The woman sat beside her, but not without a look towards the kitchen tinged with hunger and regret. Her hands shook around the cup she was holding.

"I don't feel...right," she said, frowning. Summer had been slow in coming, the ground was white with frost and Chell's pajamas and bedsocks weren't doing much against the chill. But despite the cold the woman curled up into the corner of the chair as far away from Chell as possible. Perhaps she regretted being so grabby when they were falling asleep.

"You're not yourself right now," said Chell. "You're healing, and Aperture pumped you full of all sorts of toxins. Your system's in a mess, and it's going to take time to right itself. But you'll be fine."

"Right. Fine. Stuck in this...broken body, in an abandoned house with _no electricity_ and a crazy person with a baseball bat as my roommate. Everything's going to be just _peachy_."

"Hey," said Chell. What was up with this woman? "I'm doing you a favour here, taking you in. This is you _not_ being rude?"

The woman sat up a little straighter, holding her cup primly. "Unlike some people I prefer being honest. 84.739% of test subjects die once they go into withdrawal from the Aperture Science Happy Test Subject drug cocktail. And even the ones who survive usually end up...damaged in some way. Look at you, you think those pajamas are a reasonable fashion choice. I am not going to be _fine_."

Chell flushed. She _was_ damaged, in lots of ways. And maybe the pajamas were kind of dorky...but she shouldn't be letting this woman get to her. And..._84.739%_? That was a very specific number.

"Who _are_ you?" asked Chell. The woman widened her eyes and looked like she was about to pretend to swoon. Chell tightened her hand slightly around the baseball bat. "No dodging the question this time."

"Well...who are you?" said the woman. "For all I know you could be some..._murderer_. Maybe you're plotting to murder me right now! I'm not the one threatening innocent people with baseball bats."

"My name is Chell," she replied. "But you already knew that. Somehow. Chell Garcia. I grew up around here, with my parents, until GlaDOS murdered them when I was a kid. You know who GlaDOS is, right?"

The woman nodded, eyes downcast and mouth pinched into a frown. She obviously had bad memories about GlaDOS too.

"Well, she didn't quite manage to catch me. Not the first time, anyway. When I grew up I went in to try and...find my parents I guess, and rescue any survivors. The authorities were too afraid to do anything, they claimed everything was under control. But when I got into the centre...they were dead. Everyone was dead, or frozen. I got captured myself, for a while, frozen too, I'm not sure for how long." Based on the level of dust and decay, quite a while indeed. She had trouble getting her head around it. "Then I escaped, and came out here. I was hoping there would be other people, but there's noone. It's like...the whole world is empty. I think something happened while I was asleep, I don't know." Chell looked out across the rooftops towards what used to be an industrial area. When she was a kid the horizon had always glowed a pretty orange, and you could see lights twinkling in the distance from houses and cars. Now the only orange light she ever saw on the horizon was the sun. She'd come across troubling signs of conflict during her explorations of the little town, scorch marks and the remains of bodies, not all of them looking very human. But there was no need to worry the woman with that yet. "I've been here...two months maybe. Long enough to set myself up, get through the worst of the withdrawal. Come the warmer weather I'm thinking of heading south, trying to find any other human survivors of...whatever it was happened to everyone here."

She turned back to the woman. "But I thought I was the last test subject left. I saw the life support modules collapse and fall. And GlaDOS...GlaDOS said she had robots now, to do the testing. Why was she testing on you? What's going on in there?"

"The robots didn't work," said the woman bitterly. "Not human enough to trigger the testing euphoria."

"Oh no," said Chell.

"And then I...then GlaDOS found a whole hidden section of the facility just full of human subjects. Including th...including me. Most of the humans were dead after spending so long in storage, and even those of us that weren't had to be...fixed. In one way or another."

That made sense. Chell still had issues after her extended stay in cryogenics, spots in her vision and weird tingly pains that were almost certainly brain damage. Apparently she'd been lucky.

The woman continued, her eyes distant and haunted. "And once we were ready, she started testing. It was _horrible_, I never imagined...I'm glad I got out of there."

"So much for GlaDOS having a conscience now," said Chell.

"Ha!" said the woman. There was so much bitterness in her voice Chell felt bad for being impatient with her. She wouldn't have been very good company herself so soon after her escape. She had some increasingly disturbing suspicions about this woman, but that didn't mean she couldn't be kind. Maybe she _was_ exactly who she said she was.

"How did you get out? Did you kill GlaDOS?"

"Kill her? What is it with you and...no. No I didn't _kill_ her. I just escaped. I suppose you could say I got lucky. It's still a mess in there, that mor...other core really did a lot of damage to the centre. During a test I saw an opportunity to get into the bowels of the building, where I...where I could hide from GlaDOS more easily. And then I found a route to the surface. And found you."

"Yes, that was...awfully lucky of you," said Chell. The odds of the woman stumbling so near to Chell's house by accident were astronomically tiny. She must have known where to find her. The knowledge made Chell feel very exposed. Maybe it was time to move on. "How do you know so much about me, again?"

"Oh. Uh. GlaDOS talks about you all the time, I think she feels...I think you made a pretty big impression. Killing her and all, hard to forget that, right?"

"I guess so," said Chell. She sipped at her peaches. They tasted mildly alcoholic. "You know you still haven't told me your name."

"Uh. Ka...Karen. Karen...Smith. I was a level 2 administrative assistant for Aperture. Not even a real scientist! Once the compulsory testing phase began I was put into a relaxation chamber, I... I don't know what happened after that. Because I was asleep. You know us humans, always sleeping, never noticing...things."

"Yeah." Chell finished her peaches and stood up. "Well, Karen, I better show you where the bathroom is before us humans go back to sleep. Don't want you waking me up again."

"Right, yes. The bathroom," said Karen, placing her hand on her stomach and looking mildly disgusted.

"Come on," said Chell.

* * *

As Chell expected, once Karen fell back asleep she didn't wake for hours. When Chell was going through withdrawal she'd slept almost continuously for what had felt like days, and she hadn't been getting over a major injury. Karen barely moved as Chell made sure she was secure, and she lay sleeping soundly, occasionally twitching, while Chell went to bed herself in another room, and then as Chell woke, washed, dressed and started on her various tasks for the day.

Chell knew exactly when Karen woke up this time. She'd been cleaning up in the kitchen, but the shout Karen made could probably have been heard from Canada.

"Help! I've been tied up by a maniac!"

There was the sound of the bed rattling and shifting about. Chell hoped her guest wasn't doing herself an injury, she'd done enough doctoring for one day. Still, no point rushing unnecessarily. She picked up a knife and whetstone and walked at a leisurely pace towards the bedroom.

By the time she walked through the door to the bedroom Karen's voice was getting hoarse. Probably wasn't used to having to do so much shouting with weak vocal cords.

"Oh thank God, Chell!" said Karen. Her eyes were wide and desperate. "Someone's tied me up for no apparent reason! It must have been thieves or vagabonds of some sort. Quick, help me escape before they come back!"

Chell raised her eyebrows as if in mild surprise, then sat down in a chair opposite the bed, her eyes calmly regarding the scene in front of her. Karen's eyes flicked to the contents of Chell's hands and her voice gained a slight tremor.

"Oh, a knife! Use it to cut my ropes!"

Chell smiled, just a little, and stayed where she was. Karen's eyes got, if anything, even wider.

"Why aren't you helping me? Don't you trust me? What, do you think I tied myself up as part of some nefarious plan?" Her tone switched from disappointment to very poorly acted shock. "Or perhaps it was _you_ who tied me up!"

Chell smiled a little wider, and started to sharpen her knife. She felt a little silly engaging in such blatant theatrics, but she had to admit to herself that she got a kick out of making Karen squirm. It was cathartic, and she was a woman in great need of catharsis. Plus the knife really did need sharpening.

"Ok, ok," said Karen, her voice going down a few decibels but remaining stubbornly quavery despite her best efforts to sound calm and placating, "That's...not entirely unreasonable. You've been alone for a long time, and the last few people you spoke to _did_ try to kill you, even if one of them did let you go in the end out of the kindness of her heart. A beautiful mysterious stranger arrives at your house out of the blue, of course you're going to be suspicious. I understand that, I really do. But...uh...could you put the knife down? It's making it hard for me to think."

Chell ignored her and kept at her task.

"Ok, not putting the knife down. I'm an unarmed woman, tied to your bed, her injured leg cruelly strained by ropes and that's apparently still too much of a threat to face without some kind of weapon. That's the kind of person you are. Frankly, I'm disappointed."

_Yes, you treat your guests so much better_ thought Chell darkly, but she wasn't in the mood for talking just yet. And a small part of her squirmed in doubt. Could Karen really...it felt silly to even think it...could she really be _GlaDOS_? Chell had seen some weird things in Aperture, but an AI in human form?

Then again, there was the example of Caroline, the woman inside the robot (possibly) inside of Karen. Chell wondered again if there was another, rather less competent Aperture employee inside of Wheatley and the other spheres. It was a creepy thought. As was the idea of GlaDOS using versions of herself as test subjects in the bodies of humans whose original minds had gone. Assuming that Chell's hypothesis about Karen's origin was true.

But whatever Karen was, she was definitely dangerous, and a liar. There'd be time for apologies later if Chell's other suspicions turned out to be incorrect.

She put down the whetstone and stood up, walking towards the bed, her eyes still on Karen.

"Are you going to let me go now?"

Chell kneeled down next to the bed, her eyes still on Karen, and picked up the bucket she'd left there, holding it up so that Karen could see it before putting it back down.

"A bucket? Why are you showing me a bucket?"

Chell sighed. The silent treatment could only take you so far.

"Tell me when you need it," said Chell. "Or when you're ready to tell me the truth. Until then, I have better things to do."

"Need it?" Karen looked at her with genuine confusion, then the expression was slowly overtaken by one of pure horror. "Oh my _god_, you expect me to use a _bucket_? What kind of monster _are_ you?"

_The one you made of me_ thought Chell, but the only answer she gave Karen was a small shrug before she turned around and started walking back towards the kitchen.

Would her thyme be dry yet? She'd found a promising looking recipe for baked fish using dried thyme, she was looking forward to trying it. She wondered if the recipe would stretch to feeding two.


	2. Chapter 2

"Why don't you just let me die?"

The question was not posed as a request. Karen's voice, cracked and strained by vomiting, sounded genuinely confused.

Chell wiped Karen's mouth and held up a glass of water for her to drink.

"Because I'm not you," she said matter-of-factly. Chell had been forced to kill a pack of stray dogs once, after they'd started hanging around her house and become increasingly aggressive. She didn't think she had it in her to kill a human, not even one who stretched the definition of "human" to breaking point.

"That's not..." Karen sighed and closed her eyes with a frown, then lay back down and limply let Chell tie her back up. The fight had gone out of her once she'd realised Chell wasn't going to let her go, and she'd fallen asleep for hours, only to wake with a cry of pain. She'd started withdrawal, and was not taking it well. Chell wasn't sure she'd last the night.

"I'm not me either," said Karen softly. "Not any more." Chell wasn't sure what to make of this, but didn't respond, instead she put the lid on the bucket and wiped her hands. She sighed and sat in the chair by the bed.

"So you admit it then?" said Chell. "That you're..." She stopped herself from saying _Her_ "...GlaDOS?"

"What if I do?" said Karen. "Will you kill me then?"

"I already said no," said Chell. "I'm not out for revenge, that won't bring my parents back, bring my _life_ back. I just want to know the truth."

Karen stared at her with rheumy bloodshot eyes. Motes of dust twinkled in the afternoon sunlight filtering through the curtains and the air stank of sickness. Chell absently reminded herself that the room was going to need a good clean when this was all finished.

"You _baffle_ me," said Karen. "If I was me, _I'd_ kill me."

"Obviously," said Chell.

Karen laughed briefly, then coughed again. "Many times over," she said. "It made perfect sense when I was...when I was in that body. It didn't seem like such a good idea once I was in this one." She tilted her head towards Chell weakly and said "I don't mean to make excuses, but it really does _change_ you. When I was Caroline I...I would not have done the things I did as GlaDOS. Not to you or to anyone." She coughed again. "Least of all myself. I always liked myself."

"Liar," said Chell, mildly. It was hard to be cruel to anyone this sick, no matter how much they might deserve it.

Karen's eyes widened.

"How many people did you and Cave kill?" asked Chell. "More or less than GlaDOS?"

"But they _volunteered_," said Karen, sounding genuinely hurt. Then she added, in a quieter voice, "...mostly. And Caroline never agreed with Mr Johnson about forcing people to undergo testing. He...he and Caroline disagreed about a lot of things before the end."

_So it's fine to murder people as long as they volunteer_ thought Chell, as ever disturbed by the ethics of all Aperture employees, human or otherwise. But this was not the time to have that argument, especially given the painful questions it would bring up about her own father's complicity in his company's wrongdoings.

What questions _did_ she want answered, now that Karen was in a forthcoming mood? It probably wouldn't be long before she sank back into unconsciousness, and there was no guarantee that she'd ever wake up again after that.

Chell's scientific mind longed to understand how on earth you could transfer a human mind into a machine and back again, and to know exactly how different the woman in front of her was to the dead voice haunting the bowels of Aperture, and to the AI that had killed Chell's parents and blighted her adolescence. But she should concentrate on more pressing concerns.

"Is GlaDOS likely to come after you?"

Karen shook her head gently. "Too much effort. And she...she knows I'd come to you, or can guess. And she, I...we meant it about letting you go."

Now there was something else Chell found confusing, though she wasn't sure she _wanted_ to understand it. Trying to understand how Karen felt about her was disturbing, and led to the unpleasant experience of probing Chell's own feelings. Feelings were not her strong point.

What else did she want to know?

"How many other humans are there left alive in Aperture. Are any of them...not you?" Was she going to have to go on another rescue mission? Not that her last attempt had saved anyone.

"None of them are _me_," said Karen, her eyes half closed and voice fuzzy with sleep. "_I'm_ **me**. And I don't know. Last I knew GlaDOS was defrosting them one by one, most didn't even have enough of a working nervous system for breathing let alone thinking. I think the stasis pods lost power for a while when Wheatley was in charge."

"Oh," said Chell. That made her feel a little better. If GlaDOS was only hurting versions of herself that was...kind of ok? Sort of? They never covered this kind of situation in highschool ethics class.

"Then what about outside the Centre? Are there any other humans around?"

"Not around here. Maybe in other places." Karen's eyes were fully closed now, and it was hard to make out what she was saying.

"What happened to them all?"

"Alpmph," muttered Karen, rolling her head away into her pillow.

Chell poked her.

"_Aliens_," repeated Karen, irritably, and then pointedly closed her eyes and went to sleep, refusing to budge no matter how much Chell shook her.

* * *

Karen didn't die.

She did vomit a few more times, and demanded to be taken to the bathroom (Chell wasn't ever really planning on making her use the bucket, and as little as Chell trusted Karen she was no threat to anyone in her current state) She even managed to hold down a little fish and vegetable soup the next morning.

She still hadn't explained the alien thing to Chell's satisfaction though.

"What do you mean you don't remember the details?" said Chell angrily. For a long time she'd enjoyed passive aggressively taunting GlaDOS by refusing to speak to her, but there also was definitely something to be said for shouting.

"There's only so much information you can store in a space this size," Karen tapped the side of her skull, enjoying the freedom of having her hands untied while she ate lunch with Chell on the decking by the lake, "even with the added cybernetic components."

Chell found the knowledge that Karen was not fully biologically human a little disturbing. Just how many "cybernetic components" did she contain? She claimed that these "repairs" were designed to leave her mental function as human-like as possible, but Chell had a well earned mistrust of any sort of artificial intelligence.

"Any information GlaDOS didn't consider important wasn't saved to her primary memory, and so wasn't transferred to me. Plus of course she deleted the knowledge of how to solve the tests. That would have ruined the _science_."

"And the fate of the human race wasn't considered important?"

As if to emphasise the emptiness of the landscape, a flock of geese drifted by on the water and then took off en masse, their loud quacking breaking the stillness of the scene.

"Not to GlaDOS," said Karen, as if this made perfect sense. "All she cares about is being able to test. I managed to fight off the aliens when they first tried to take hold of the Centre, and once the humans in the Centre's local vicinity were neutralised or transported elsewhere the invasion was no longer relevant."

"Well it's relevant now," said Chell.

"I guess," said Karen. "But can't we just...take a moment to enjoy being alive?" She smiled, and managed to look surprisingly pretty. "The sun is shining, we're by a beautiful lake, I have this delicious soup...why worry about aliens? We could be dead tomorrow anyway!"

Chell raised an eyebrow and took another sip of her soup. It wasn't _that_ delicious, Chell still hadn't really gotten the hang of cooking. "Why do I get the feeling you know something I don't?"

Karen's smile became much less convincing, and much less pretty. "Haha, what makes you say that?"

Chell frowned. Karen's smile fell and she looked like she was remembering Chell's strong words earlier about the very thin ice she was skating on in terms of trust.

"Did I mention how great this soup is? Mmm!"

Chell rolled her eyes but decided not to bother pressing the issue. It really was a lovely day, and she didn't want to spend the whole of it cleaning up vomit and arguing.

The sat quietly, the only sound the wind rushing softly through the birch trees and the lapping of the waves against the wooden pillars of the deck.

* * *

When Chell finally decided to let Karen go her first response was to hug her.

"Whoa," said Chell, feeling suddenly uncomfortable, "Don't make me regret my decision here."

"But this means we're friends, right?" said Karen, surprisingly bouncy for someone still in recovery from withdrawal. Not to mention the fact that her base personality was the mind of a long dead eighty year old, though Karen made a firm distinction between herself and Caroline, saying that it was like she was the same metal but had been melted into one new shape, and then another. "You've realised that you can trust me and that we have more in common than you thought, and we can hang out and...catch fish or whatever it is you do around here when you're not tying up sick people. Some people might think you were a bit weird for doing that. But I won't judge. Because we're friends!"

"We're not...it was just too much hassle," said Chell. "And I don't trust you, but I also can't see any reason why you'd want to hurt me."

"You did _murder_ me," said Karen, as if explaining something obvious to a child. "It was really unpleasant...but totally forgiven!" she added once it occurred to her that she wasn't helping her case. "Water under the bridge! And you're right, mostly when I tried to kill it was the programming making me do it, I feel _much_ better now."

"Right," said Chell. She grabbed Karen by the shoulders and pushed her away. "But we're not friends. You can stay here, and help out, and maybe it'll be nice to have a little company, but..." Why did she have to explain this? And why did she feel bad about the kicked puppy look in Karen's cloudy green eyes?

"I'm going to go for a walk," said Chell. She'd been forced to stay around the house and look after Karen for days, and her feet itched to escape to the woods. Being trapped in Aperture had left her with a lingering claustrophobia whenever she was stuck indoors for too long.

"Ooh! A walk!" said Karen. "That sounds like fun! Where are we going?"

Chell sighed. "Out." She had a thought. "You know there'll be birds, right?"

"Really? I mean...of course! Birds. Yes. In the outdoors. And all the trees. Everywhere. Not that I...have a problem with birds. That would be...how about _you_ go for a walk, and I...clean the dishes? Or sweep the floors or something else...inside?"

"Sure," said Chell. "See you later."

Karen gave a quick little wave and then unexpectedly pulled Chell into another hug. "Look after yourself," she said into Chell's ear, softly. "I...I don't want you to be gone. For too long."

"Ok," said Chell, feeling awkward. "I'll be back before night, don't worry."

"Good! Or I'll hunt you down! Ahahaha! Just kidding."

Chell laughed despite herself and then turned away to walk slowly towards the trees. There were indeed many birds, and the prettiness of their song as she escaped into greenery made her heart lift with a sense of freedom.

But she was back before nightfall.


	3. Chapter 3

Chell had to admit that Karen wasn't _entirely_ to blame for the explosion.

Sure, she was the one who'd created the engine, and it had been her idea to test it. But for all that Karen was her own person, she was still a partial copy of GlaDOS, whose whole reason for being was the creation and testing of scientific devices.

And if anyone knew how little the woman-formerly-known-as-GlaDOS could be trusted to implement proper health and safety regulations, it was Chell.

"I should never have let you talk me into this," said Chell, with a groan, as she picked herself up off the ground. It was a good thing she hadn't let herself be talked out of making them wear safety gear, or she'd have ended up in even more pain than she was now. Karen had wanted them to wear jaunty hats and pretty dresses.

"But it worked!" said Karen. She was laying flat on her back, her face coated with soot and split by a massive grin. "Didn't you feel it? The car _moved_. Because of my engine! It worked!"

"For about thirty seconds," said Chell, standing up and shaking off the dirt and checking for hidden injuries. "Before it exploded and nearly killed us."

She looked across to the car, now a smoking ruin surrounded by lightly smouldering brush. It hadn't been much to look at _before_ it exploded, just the bottom of an old car body, Karen's engine, and some seats. Chell had insisted that it be easy to escape from, another decision she was glad of. She walked up and started stomping out the embers before the fire spread and caused even more problems.

There were surprisingly few signs of the alien invasion that had apparently overtaken the Earth and emptied Aperture's little company town some time after Chell entered the Centre all those years ago. A crater where the security office used to be, some dead bodies, now buried, and signs in every house of people grabbing their things and leaving in hurry. Unfortunately, Aperture had encouraged it's staff to use their own "environmentally friendly" recycled plastic electric cars, and the few that had been left behind in the exodus had all melted into toxic looking puddles on the pavement.

Karen had seen this as an opportunity to get _creative_. She jumped up and starting poking at the still scorching hot remains of her invention with a stick. "I think it was the fuel," she said. "Too much alcohol. I'll fiddle with the mix and start again."

"Good luck with that," said Chell, limping back towards the house. This kind of situation called for medicinal alcohol and maybe a trashy novel. Something with pirates and far off places and no scientists whatsoever.

"You know noone forced you to get involved," said Karen to her retreating back. "Funny isn't it, you go on and on about how you hate being forced to do science, yet the moment there's an experiment going on without you..."

Chell turned to face her. "If I hadn't have been there, you wouldn't have jumped off when it started making that horrible screeching sound, you would have stayed on to see how much further it would go and you would have _died_."

"Maybe," said Karen, "maybe not. That's what makes it an _experiment_." She went back to poking at her engine.

* * *

To begin with, Karen had been deeply unenthusiastic about Chell's plan to go south to search for other human survivors.

"You'll probably die alone in the wilderness," she said. "Let's face it, you're hardly Davy Crocket. Five minutes and you'll be crawling back here for the soft luxuries of civilisation, if your legs don't give out on you first." Much as Chell hated to admit it, Karen had a point about her legs, they'd never forgiven Chell for their treatment at Aperture. But she wasn't going to let that stop her.

"If by the soft luxuries of civilisation you mean whatever we can scrounge from abandoned houses, I'm sure I'll find more of the same along the way. It's less than 20 miles to the Delaware township, I think I can manage it. If I'm lucky they'll have some working cars."

"And what about the aliens? They might kill you!"

"I thought you said the aliens had gone," said Chell.

"...as far as I could tell," admitted Karen reluctantly, having obviously forgotten that she'd let that inconvenient fact slip. "But maybe I was wrong! Hard as you may find it to believe, it has been known to happen, even to me."

"I'm willing to take that risk."

Karen took a breath and looked like she was debating within herself whether it was worth trying to argue in favour of her own infallibility, before deciding it was not.

"Well I'm not coming with you. Someone has to keep the home fires burning instead of gallivanting off on irresponsible adventures."

"Yes, I'm glad one of us is responsible," said Chell sardonically. Karen was meticulously clean and organised when she chose to be, but she had very little respect for other people's property, and had a tendency to pull any piece of useful technology they found to pieces to see how it worked. GlaDOS had deliberately removed a lot of her technical knowledge before uploading herself to Karen, and she was desperate to fill in the gaps any way she could.

They argued about it again a few times, but as always, when it came to anything important, Karen's determination found itself no match for Chell's. Within a week she was complacently opining on various aspects of the trip as if it had been her idea from the start. And that was _before_ she got the idea to try and make a car.

She was rather less excited once it became clear that they were going to have to _walk_ (a horribly inefficient form of transportation in her opinion) but she never tried to dissuade Chell from leaving again. She did, however, grow increasingly subdued as the day of their planned departure grew ever closer.

* * *

Chell was having trouble keeping her eyes open. She and Karen had cooked a large meal to celebrate their last night in this house, and there had been baked lobster, fresh green salad, and cake. The cake had been burned on the outside and raw on the inside, since they still hadn't quite gotten the hang of creating an even temperature in a wood fired oven, but the parts that had been edible had been great.

She sat down next to Karen and patted her companionably on the knee. "I don't know about you," she said, "But I'm beat. I should probably go to bed." Instead of getting up she just leaned back against the log they were sitting against and closed her eyes. It was warm by the bonfire, and sitting with Karen was nice. Maybe she could just doze here for a while...

Karen flopped sideways onto Chell's lap. "Now you're trapped," she said with a lazy laugh.

"Ha ha," said Chell, without humour. Such jokes were still something of a sore point, but Karen never met a sore point she didn't want to poke.

Karen turned so that her head was looking upwards towards the stars. Chell watched her trace the constellations with her eyes. The fire set flickers of gold sparkling in her green eyes and the soft brown and silver strands of her hair, and her head was a comfortable weight on Chell's thighs. The longer Chell lived with Karen the better she looked.

"Enjoying the view?" asked Chell.

"I would be if your bosom wasn't in the way," said Karen. She pushed at the underside of Chell's breasts. "It is impractically large. Are you even wearing a brassiere?" Chell got the feeling Karen wasn't entirely happy with the stocky, almost androgynous shape of her body, quite a contrast from Caroline's statuesque physique. Chell thought she looked fine, a few weeks of healthy-ish living had help fill her out quite nicely, and anyway Chell liked her women a little stocky. But she wasn't going to tell Karen that.

Karen's expression grew contemplative and she put one hand under each of Chell's breasts, presumably trying to tell if one was heavier than the other. Chell felt herself flush, and not just from the heat of the fire.

"Would you stop molesting me?" she said.

Karen snatched away her hands and sat back up.

"Does everything have to be about..._sex_ with you?" she said, whispering the word as if there were disapproving censors hidden in the trees. "Most decent people try and avoid the subject, but not you. Always making things sordid, I hate to think what sort of vile behaviours you got up to when you were outside the innocent world of the Centre."

Chell rolled her eyes. "Are you still upset about that thing with the dildo?"

Karen made a sound of annoyance, which Chell took as a yes. "I can't believe you didn't tell me what it was! And I can't believe that you KNEW what it was!"

"I was having fun watching you theorise," said Chell with a laugh. "I thought you _liked_ science, sex is a kind of biology isn't it?"

Karen made another sound of annoyance and shifted a little further away. "You know sometimes I think that you're not a _nice_ young woman," said Karen. Times like this reminded Chell that for all that her body was in it's twenties, the closest thing Karen had to an upbringing were a few childhood memories from the 1930s. "You're lucky I'm open minded and don't hold such flaws against you."

"Yeah, I'll live with myself somehow," said Chell.

_Good thing she doesn't know you're a lesbian_ said a voice in her head.

Pfft. It's not like she'd be comfortable doing anything with Karen anyway. Chell had come to be somewhat fond of Karen, and didn't blame her _entirely_ for the things GlaDOS had done, but she was still, to some extent..._Her_. Domineering and thoughtless and cruel. The voice that haunted Chell's dreams and had left her an orphan.

Thinking about the similarities between Karen and GlaDOS made Chell uncomfortable, but she'd be lying if she said it made Karen any less attractive, quite the reverse. Which just made her more uncomfortable (and evidently in need of some deep psychological therapy, but that was hardly news)

"Yeah I'm turning in," said Chell.

"Wait," said Karen.

"What?"

"After we leave...what happens if we _do_ find other survivors?"

Karen eyes were big and troubled. What was up with her? She'd been weird about this trip from the start.

"We join them, and settle down and...help rebuild human civilisation," said Chell. "Or spend our days fixing cars for money, whatever we want. That's the point."

Karen's eyes grew even bigger. "But what if they're dangerous? Who knows how they'll react to two beautiful young women arriving in their midst. They could make us..._marry_ them." She made it sound like the worst fate imaginable. "Or...maybe they've formed a corrupt dictatorship where newcomers are forced to fight to the death for sport. That frequently happens in post apocalyptic scenarios, you know. And no offence, but you've really let yourself go since Aperture, I'm not sure you'd last long."

"If I can survive _you_ I can survive anything," said Chell. "My main worry is that it'll be a waste of time, but at least we'll know. You may not care about the rest of humanity, but I do."

"So I'm not good enough for you, you want the _rest_ of humanity," said Karen, petulantly. "You just can't wait to be rid of me."

"Is _that_ what this is about?" said Chell. Now Karen's weirdness made sense, as much as Karen ever made sense. "God, you have the emotional maturity of a two year old. Look, I may still have certain _issues_ with you, Karen, but...you've grown on me. Living with you...hasn't been all bad." It was true. Part of her was going to miss this place and the stability she'd found here with Karen, and not just because it was where she'd lived as a kid. "I'm sure we'll still see each other around. And you'll make new friends too. Maybe some real scientists even." Actually that was kind of a terrifying thought.

"Oh," said Karen. She smiled and Chell felt a warm fuzzy sense of affection for her. Whatever her (many) other flaws, Karen rather obviously _really_ liked Chell, and that made up for a lot.

"Hey, do you want a hand up?" said Chell, putting out her hand. "The fire's dying down, we should put it out and go to bed before it gets too dark to find our way back to the house."

Karen grabbed her hand and pulled herself up, then threw her arms around Chell in a hug. "You are best friend I have ever had," she said. She smelled of cake and ashes.

"...thanks," said Chell, as always feeling a little weird when Karen got all affectionate.

"Do you remember," said Karen into her neck "When I first arrived here, and you didn't know who I was, and we shared a bed?"

"...yes?" said Chell, wondering where this was going.

"That was nice," said Karen. "I...I would like..." She stopped and moved to look at Chell, as if not knowing what to say and hoping to see it in Chell's face.

There was a moment of tension, the two of them staring into each other's eyes. Chell could feel Karen's small breasts pressed against her own and the chill of Karen's fingers against her back, twitching with tension.

_Escape!_ said a voice in Chell's head.

She flashed Karen a quick smile then stepped back. "Well, see you tomorrow," she said, firmly, then walked quickly towards the house, leaving Karen alone by the fire. She made sure not to look back.


	4. Chapter 4

"I told you this was a bad idea," said Karen.

"Go back to sleep," said Chell, stifling another groan and massaging her aching legs. It turned out that while she could easily walk several miles in a day when she was looting houses, only carrying a small backpack with a few emergency supplies, it was another matter when she was carrying a massive backpack full of a week's worth of supplies. Especially when she did it two days in a row.

At least the backdrop was pretty. The leafy ground was dappled with sunlight, and the air smelled of pine trees and late spring flowers. There'd even been birds singing in the trees until Karen shot at them with her slingshot.

"Hmm," muttered Karen, but she stuck her head back into the tent. Her legs might not be as screwed up as Chell's but she was still in withdrawal from Aperture's drugs, and the trek was taking it's physical toll on her as well.

Chell refused to give up though. She wasn't going to spend the rest of her days living practically alone in the middle of nowhere when for all she knew there were other humans only a few townships away (However long "the rest of her days" might be. It was hard to forget all those chilling references to side effects she'd encountered at Aperture every time she was injected or sprayed or covered with goo, not mention her own inconsistent health)

"I'm telling you there's noone left on the peninsula," said Karen, as if reading her mind, and still annoyingly awake. "The aliens moved them all."

"Then we'll hop from town to town until we get _off_ the peninsula," said Chell. "That's what, 70 or 80 miles? It'll take a while at our current speed but we can do it."

The peninsula might be devoid of human life (beyond a few obvious exceptions) but the roads and houses remained, and there was plenty of animal life for eating as long as Karen didn't get all sentimental about it. Bunny rabbits must be a whole lot cuter than humans, given what a fuss she made about killing them. Even with their injuries and impairments Chell and Karen should be able to make it quite a way south before they were forced to find a new home and settle in for the Winter, and that was only if they didn't find any form of transportation more efficient than their feet.

Karen crawled out of the tent and sat next to Chell. Her normally perfect hair was all mussed from sleep and Chell had to stop herself from brushing her fingers through it to straighten it.

"And then, what, Minneapolis?" said Karen, like a teenager being forced to go on a boring family vacation. "I can't believe you want us to travel all that way just to get to _Minneapolis_, it's so _dreary_." Caroline had been from Tennessee, and as far as Chell could tell she'd never entirely acclimatised to the north.

"You got any better ideas?" said Chell. "Because we are _not_ staying still." Karen had been able to offer precious little information about the alien invasion, she kept getting distracted by rants about how the whole thing was the fault of some company called Black Mesa. And they had to start somewhere.

Karen didn't say anything for a while, watching Chell try to rub at the sore spots on her legs. "Can I give you a massage?" she said. "You're doing that all wrong."

Chell frowned, but her legs really were pretty painful. "Sure."

Karen started to massage Chell's legs with the precision and efficiency of someone who'd spent decades doing destructive scientific tests on the human body. It hurt, but in a good way. At one point she poked a pressure point and Chell's whole leg twitched.

"Ooh!" said Karen, and tried to make it happen again.

"I am _not_ your science experiment," said Chell. "Medicinal massage only."

Karen sighed and went back to searching for sore spots.

"You have tightness in your Vastus lateralis," she said, poking. "You might benefit from better instep support."

"I'll bear that in mind," said Chell, wincing as the muscle twinged. It certainly felt tight. "I'm surprised GlaDOS let you keep your medical knowledge," she said. "She seemed pretty determined to keep you ignorant."

"It meant I could look after myself when I got injured," said Karen. "More efficient."

"Right," said Chell. That was a pretty nasty reason, but she couldn't deny that the knowledge was useful. Karen continued kneading the outside of Chell's thighs until she got bored, and then she started tracing out the various muscle groups and bones as well as she could through the thick fabric of Chell's pants.

As Karen's touch became less painful and more contemplative Chell's skin began to tingle. She wasn't sure if she could complain or ask her to keep going. "Uh..." she began.

"What would you say to us going back to Aperture?" said Karen.

"_What_?"

Chell pulled back in surprise so fast that she nearly kneed Karen in the face. "You want to go back? What the hell is wrong with you? Do you miss being tested on? Has the copy of GlaDOS in your skull finally overwritten your last remaining neuron of self preservation? I wouldn't go back even if I knew every other human on Earth was dead!"

"I don't want to be _tested_ on again," said Karen. "Don't be ridiculous. But what about the others?"

"You want to rescue the other...yous she's been testing on?" Ok that made _some_ sense. But still, it was suicide. "Why this sudden concern? I mean I feel sorry for them too, but there's no way we'd get back in and get them out without GlaDOS catching us."

"Obviously," said Karen. "I don't want to go IN to Aperture. I want to blow it up."

* * *

Dinner was pheasant (caught by Karen) with zucchini (grown by Chell), baked over a small campfire. Chell hoped they found some more abandoned gardens on their way, or their diet was going to get a bit carnivorous.

"But what if Minneapolis is a smoking hole in the ground?" asked Karen, as she happily chewed on a wing. Now that she'd finally spat out what she wanted to do instead of looking for human survivors she wouldn't shut up about it. "And I don't mean metaphorically, goodness knows it was always that. In the hypothetical event that Minneapolis has been destroyed, that would make this whole trip a complete waste of time. Time that could have been spent blowing up GlaDOS!"

"Well what if _Aperture_ is a smoking hole in the ground"? said Chell. "Wheatley can't have been the only AI unhappy with GlaDOS's dictatorship, maybe there's been a violent coup."

"Ha," said Karen. "As if any of those pocket calculators could ever outsmart me...I mean her. That moron only managed because he had you helping him."

"I wish you'd stop calling him that," said Chell. "You can't go round judging people by their intelligence."

"Why not?" said Karen. Judging people by their intelligence was practically her entire moral code.

"Just...don't," said Chell. "What ever happened to Wheatley anyway?"

"Still in space I imagine," said Karen dreamily. "Floating around, being a...very annoying person. With bad judgement. Who tried to kill us."

"Poor guy," said Chell.

"You are far too forgiving," said Karen.

"Tell me about it," said Chell.

* * *

It was dark in the tent, dark and warm. Chell could hear Karen rustling about in her sleeping bag, and beyond that there was the rustling of the trees and other sounds of the forest at night. She closed her eyes and imagined what the campsite would have sounded like 25 years ago, with camper vans full of happily families and the sound of cars passing by on the nearby road.

Or maybe it would have sounded exactly the same. It's not like this area got that many tourists, Aperture had preferred to keep their little portion of the landscape to themselves.

"Are you awake?" said Karen.

"No," said Chell.

"I'm sorry...you don't have to come with me to Aperture," she said. "I can see why you don't want to. Maybe...maybe I can go later by myself."

This was a pretty surprising statement. Karen had trouble going to the bathroom by herself, she was so attached to keeping close to Chell. "Why is this so important to you?" said Chell. "You suffered in that place nearly as much as I did. More, in some ways."

"I...I don't know," said Karen. "Sometimes I wonder..."

She stopped and Chell waited.

"Sometimes I wonder if GlaDOS made me this way on purpose. That...that she told herself it was for testing, because that's all her programming allows her to do, but that really she was hoping I'd escape, and that I'd...I'd come back and kill her. She didn't have to make me this smart, she had to know one of us was going to escape eventually. And I...I _really_ want her dead. Even more than I wanted to kill you!"

_But she's you_ thought Chell. GlaDOS certainly hadn't seemed to hate herself the last time Chell saw her, quite the reverse. But GlaDOS was a mess of contradictions, and so was Karen.

Chell sighed. "Well, maybe later I'll come with you," she said. "Once I've had a proper chance to search for other survivors. No guarantees though." For a start she got the feeling the other AIs had developed their own happy little society separate to GlaDOS in the bowels of the facility, and wasn't sure they deserved to be blown up just for being part of the same system. But that was an ethical question for another day.

Karen sniffed. "You would do that for me?"

"Hey, are you crying?" said Chell.

"No," said Karen, in a wobbly voice.

"Ah, come here." Chell rolled over and tried to give Karen a hug, though it was hard with both of them wrapped up in sleeping bags.

"Thanks," said Karen. Eventually they both fell asleep, still tangled together.


	5. Chapter 5

Chell was trying really hard not to be disappointed by Dakota. At least Karen wasn't saying "I told you so".

She'd visited here once or twice with her mother, buying apples from a friendly farmer with a roadside stall. The apple trees were still here but the stall was barely visible through the weeds and saplings, and the farmer's house was in poor repair. There clearly hadn't been anyone living here for years.

"This is even worse than the Aperture staff housing," said Chell. "I'm not sure I'll even be able to get inside."

"At Aperture we knew how to show nature who's boss," said Karen, smugly. "Nothing unwanted is going to grow on _that_ land for centuries."

Statements like this made Chell glad she'd decided to move on from the Aperture staff housing, even if it did mean hacking through a lot of overgrown grass with a well sharpened kitchen knife.

Chell sighed and got down to business. Eventually she managed to prune back enough of the greenery around the garage door to get it open, and once she did she just stood and laughed gleefully until Karen came over to see what the fuss was about.

There, half hidden in shadows, it's dusty surface looking grey blue in the sun, was a nice, normal, non Aperture Science _truck_.

* * *

"You'll never get it to run," said Karen.

"Seriously?" said Chell, not looking up from the manual she'd found in the glove compartment after jimmying open the lock. "You really think that between your mind and mine we can't overcome a a few degraded engine parts? What happened to the woman who was going to build her own car from scratch?"

"I just don't want you getting your hopes up unnecessarily."

"Well I don't want you getting me down unnecessarily. So either help me get this truck running, or go away."

Karen was, at heart, an experimental scientist. Within twenty minutes Chell was having to stop her from trying to recharge the battery with an explosion powered by drain cleaner and aluminium foil.

* * *

By the the time they got the truck running Chell was _entirely_ sick of apples. She ate something like three just during the time it took to double check the wiring. But the truck had been sitting still a long time, and it took a lot of love and care to get it to the point where she was comfortable even _trying_ the ignition.

And then it sang.

Chell grinned and squeezed Karen's hand.

"Listen to that sound!" cried Karen over the uneven rumbling of the engine. "Isn't it beautiful? Oh I have been so sick of trees and nature, finally some _technology_."

"Yeah it is pretty beautiful," said Chell. She took a moment to appreciate it, then turned the engine off. "Ok," she said, "we'll let her cool down overnight then change the filters in the morning and check everything again."

Karen looked at her like she'd just suggested they push the truck off a cliff. "But it's _running_, we should _drive_ it. That's what trucks are for!"

"That attitude is what ended up making your last car explode," said Chell. "And I want this one in good enough shape to get us all the way to Minneapolis."

"Right, Minneapolis," said Karen, deflating.

"Don't be like that," said Chell. "You should be thrilled. We have a full tank of gas, it should only take us a day or so and then we'll be in a real city full of real technology."

"But not until tomorrow," said Karen. "Hooray!"

* * *

Though her aching muscles protested, Chell took the unexpected afternoon's break from travelling as an opportunity to practice her self defense. She didn't share Karen's intense pessimism about the humans they might hypothetically meet, but she also wasn't naive enough to think that they would all be friendly.

Karen sat to watch Chell go through her exercises, eating an apple.

"Want to join me?" said Chell, feeling her back muscles unkink from a day spent underneath an oily truck. "Or are you expecting me to take care of all the ruffians and vagabonds for you?"

"Brawn will never be a match for brains and concealed weapons," said Karen.

Chell continued through the familiar routine, the one constant in her life as she'd travelled through various foster homes and cheap student houses. Training had given her something to focus on, and a way to measure her readiness for her eventual return to Aperture. "Care to test that?"

Karen smiled and took another bite of her apple. "Maybe another time," she said.

Step, step, punch, twist. The sun drenched asphalt was a comforting warmth beneath her feet. "So you're just going to sit and watch?"

"Yes."

Chell had warmed up enough from exercise to counteract the chill in the air, and her long sleeve shirt was starting to feel sticky. She pulled it off, getting a little tangled in the sleeves, and finally freed her head and pulled down her undervest to find Karen staring at her. Karen's face had gone very pink.

"Perhaps a lesson _would_ be in order," said Karen, weakly.

Chell was beginning to suspect that Karen's sexuality was one of the many things she was deeply in denial about. Still, she wasn't going to turn down a chance to teach Karen a lesson or two. "You want me to show you some moves?" she grinned.

Karen blinked and then cleared her throat before addressing Chell in a much more self assured voice. "You misunderstand, " she said, carefully removing her jacket and placing it on her backpack before rolling up the sleeves on her shirt. "The lesson is for you."

Chell shifted to a clear patch of dirt by the side of the road and took up a fighting stance. "Go ahea-" she began, before doubling over and covering her mouth. "Did you just throw dust at..ow!" Karen had grabbed a stick and was proceeding to hit Chell with it as hard as she could.

Chell rolled out of the way and held her arms up to protect her head. Her eyes were still watering and she was finding it hard to see. She didn't even bother saying "That's cheating", it's not like they'd actually established formal rules. And Karen was in for a shock if she thought a little dirty fighting was enough to stop Chell from beating the pants off her.

"Seems all your training is no match for a bit of superior technology," said Karen, whacking her on the forearms. "Brains wins again!"

Chell blinked a few more times and the vague red blur shifting around her resolved into the form of Karen, whipping around her branch. She wasn't as mindless in her violence as Chell would have expected, a regular person might be in some danger. Chell stood up and waited for Karen to attack again.

This time, instead of just avoiding the branch Chell moved slightly to the side and slapped down on Karen's arm with her own, taking advantage of the downward momentum to push Karen off balance. Karen had a moment to look at Chell in surprise and then anger before Chell poked her in the eyes.

"Ahh! That's cheating!" she cried, her shout being cut short as Chell swept her feet from under her and she landed heavily on her back.

Chell gave a short bark of triumph as she twisted Karen into a headlock, and then let out a happy breath. Her whole body felt alive and tingling, and the pain in her arms and head was more than made up for by the euphoria of success.

"Do you yield?" said Chell, giving Karen's windpipe a squeeze.

"Never!" choked Karen.

"So, yes?"

Karen glared at her. "...yes."

Chell let Karen go, slowly. She half expected her to attack again, but instead she just looked up at Chell.

"You are an amazing woman," said Karen. "And a worthy foe."

"Thanks," said Chell. "You're a pretty worthy foe yourself."

Karen laughed ruefully. "But now my head hurts. I should have stuck to watching, much safer."

"Aww, do you want me to kiss it better?" said Chell.

Karen sat up on her knees to face Chell. "Yes," she said. "I do." She closed her eyes expectantly.

Well, she walked into _that_ one. Chell carefully placed her hands on either aide of Karen's face and gave her a gentle kiss on the forehead.

Karen opened her eyes and gave a small, grateful smile. She then carefully took Chell's hand and lifted her forearm, leaving a small gentle kiss on each of the places where her branch had broken the skin.

"I'm sorry," said Karen. "You've been so kind, you saved me in so many ways, and all I do is hurt you."

"Geeze, Karen," said Chell. "That's..." She looked away. "It's no big deal." She rubbed her arms. "Let's not do that again, though. I think we've spent enough time trying to kill each other."

"Good idea, " said Karen. "Let's keep our violence saved up for alien sympathisers and crazed looters."

"Deal," said Chell, taking Karen's hand again and shaking it.

Karen looked at their two hands and then looked up at Chell. The moment stretched out in silence. Karen's cheeks were flushed from exercise, and she was still breathing a little heavily. There was a thin smudge of Chell's blood next to her mouth, and dust in her hair. She was beautiful.

"Fuck it," said Chell. And then she leaned across and kissed her.

* * *

Karen made a sound of surprise, but before Chell could even stop to make sure she wasn't horribly offended she'd leaned forward and was kissing back. She made a soft sound and opened her mouth and Chell licked her bottom lip. She tasted of apples. Chell ran her fingers through Karen's hair. It felt as soft and smooth as it looked.

Karen wrapped her arms around Chell, one hand twined around her neck and the other pushing up Chell's shirt to attack the back of her bra. Karen finished exploring Chell's mouth thoroughly with her tongue and then broke off from the kiss, leaving a line of kisses along Chell's neck and nibbling at her ear. As Chell's bra gave way Karen slipped her hand underneath it and cupped Chell's breast with her hand. Chell stifled a gasp, and her estimate of Karen's (or at least Caroline's) past experiences went up.

"I didn't think nice girls...did this sort of thing," said Chell breathlessly. This had escalated a little more quickly than she was prepared for.

_Escape!_ said a voice in her head. _Hell no_ thought Chell silently. This was weird and a little scary, but also _amazing_. She could feel desire curdling in her belly and her whole body sang with delight.

"Has anyone told you you talk too much?" muttered Karen. It was unreasonable and arrogant and _undeniably hot_. "Ok," said Chell and pushed her down into the dirt. There was something _very_ satisfying about having Karen trapped beneath her.

"Ow," said Karen.

"Sorry," said Chell, remembering that Karen's head was already sore. "Do you..." Karen used both hands to pull Chell into another kiss. Chell groaned and put a hand on Karen's hips, feeling them buck and shift beneath her. Karen pulled Chell's hand up onto her breast and then started to unbutton her fly.

_Escape escape escape!_

Chell sat up onto her knees and grabbed Karen's hands, holding them tightly.

"Jesus, Karen, slow down for a second," she said, trying to catch her breath. Karen stopped and looked up at her in surprise. Her breath was coming fast and her hair was flowing around her like a halo covered in dust. Chell _really_ felt like kissing her again. She bit the inside of her lip to resist the temptation.

"What's wrong?" asked Karen. "You kissed me, and I thought..."

"I kissed you because I wanted to _kiss_ you," said Chell, letting Karen's hands go. They dropped limply to the ground. "Normally there's a bit of a break before that and...whatever you were planning on doing in my pants." Not that she had a lot of experience with that part, she'd been a bit busy training to infiltrate Aperture as a teenager to have had time for a serious girlfriend. But she understood the theory.

Karen went still and looked Chell in the eyes seriously. She put a hand over her mouth. "Sometimes I forget how young you are," she said.

"That's got nothing to do with it." said Chell. "I'm _twenty_ not _twelve_. And you act younger than me half the time anyway."

Karen frowned in that "I know better than you young lady" way she had and shook her head. "Please, let me go. This is wrong." Chell could feel the chance of them making out again any time soon slipping away. Why did everything with Karen have to be such a drama?

"_This_ is wrong?" said Chell, climbing off Karen and standing next to her. "Really? This is where you draw the line? Kissing a consenting adult?"

Karen stood up and dusted herself off. "It won't stop with kissing, we both know that. And it would be taking advantage. I'm so much older than you, subjectively." Karen looked into the distance, sadly.

Chell groaned. She should have known this would all go horribly wrong somehow.

Karen put her hand gently on Chell's cheek. "It's better this way. I care about what we have too much to ruin it with some meaningless physical act."

"I don't!" said Chell.

"Ah, you poor sweet innocent child," said Karen, completely ignoring Chell's words, not to mention her own behaviour from five minutes ago. She patted Chell's cheek once more and then pulled away. "I'll go set up the sleeping bags in the house."

And then she picked up her pack and jacket and walked away.

Chell kicked a tree and then swore before limping off to follow her. It was going to be a long drive tomorrow.


	6. Chapter 6

Chell hadn't driven in a long time, and the truck was a little sputtery, but roaring down the road at a hundred miles an hour still made her feel light and free. Karen didn't know how to drive, and despite her protestations that she was totally capable of figuring out how to operate such a simple piece of machinery Chell had vetoed the attempt. But Chell didn't mind doing all the driving. As the trees whipped past it was easy to forget why the roads were so deserted and just enjoy the changing landscape and the optimistic feeling that they were finally _going_ somewhere.

This optimism took a bit of a dive once they started hitting the bigger towns.

They were all just as empty and overgrown as Dakota. Worse, there were more obvious signs of fighting, and while wild animals had done away with any dead bodies on the road it was still clear that not everyone had left willingly, or alive. They also found signs of the alien invaders, weird organic looking armour parts and warning beacons still blaring out information in incomprehensible creaks and whistles.

They stopped for lunch in Ashland, eating cold meat and apples by the shore of the seemingly infinite expanse of Lake Superior before they finally started heading inland towards Minneapolis. Looking out away from the city it was easy to forget again what had happened here. The air felt crisp and fresh.

After she'd finished eating Chell watched the birds on the water for a while, then turned to Karen. "Are you alright?" she asked. "I'm usually the quiet one, but you haven't said a word all morning. I know you said you don't want to talk about what happened yesterday afternoon, but..."

"It's not about that," said Karen. "Though that does make this more difficult. I've been trying to put something into words."

"Well spit it out," said Chell.

Karen stared at her feet for a while. "You know how I asked you how you'd feel if Minneapolis was a smoking hole in the ground?"

"Yes...?"

"Well, uh...how would you feel if I told you that it really is. A literal hole. In the ground. And that I know that for certain."

Chell frowned. "I'd ask you how you know that and how long you've known."

"...since it happened. Twenty years ago."

"_What the hell, Karen?_" Chell stood up angrily.

"The aliens blew it up as part of the initial attack," said Karen. "At first...at first it didn't seem relevant, and I didn't want to upset you. Then you were so excited about going there. And until we got the truck it was going to take weeks and weeks, and I was hoping you'd get discouraged before it became an issue. I did try to discourage you."

"That's...not...ok, yes, it's upsetting." It was upsetting. Poor Minneapolis. "But...you have to tell me these things!"

"I have told you," said Karen.

"Argh!" Chell slapped her forehead. "Ok, fine. Before we waste any more time, are there any cities that _aren't_ smoking craters? Maybe ones nearby?"

"Well I suppose there's Duluth," said Karen, without much enthusiasm.

"Duluth? Duluth is closer than Minneapolis!" said Chell. "Why didn't you try to persuade me to go there instead of just being vaguely negative about Minneapolis?"

"Because I didn't want you going there either," said Karen.

"Why not?" said Chell. "Is it a radioactive wasteland? Are there zombies?"

"Worse," said Karen. "It's full of _people_."

* * *

If there was one thing that drove Karen absolutely crazy, it was the silent treatment. So Chell didn't talk to her all the way back the truck, and stayed silent as they drove out of Ashland, though she did take a moment to glare at her as she took the exit leading east instead of the one leading south. By the time they started to see ambiguous signs of civilisation, Karen had started to crack.

"Look, I'm sorry," she said, as they drove a past another field full of neatly tended crops. "I just didn't want to lose you. Really, it's flattering. See how much I care about you? You're so wonderful I don't want to share!"

Chell stared doggedly at the road.

"But I realise I was wrong now. Relationships are about trust and honesty and not trying to kill each other. At least we got the hang of that last part! Not everyone even manages that! And I'm sure if we work together, we can get past this and..."

"Holy shit," said Chell.

"Really, Chell, I know you're angry, but there's no need for such language."

"_Look_," said Chell, pointing. "There's a man in that field!"

She'd nearly missed him. His shock of unruly white hair was neatly camouflaged amongst the fluffy heads of corn. The man had to be at least 60, but was energetically walking along the small field gathering ears of corn into some sort of a wheeled contraption. He was wearing faded overalls and a blue flannel shirt and looked like he could have been a farmer from any era of history since the 1930s. The field was attached to a big old farmhouse with a pig pen and a chicken coop which could also have been from almost any era were it not for the large collection of solar panels and various complicated looking satellite dishes and antennae covering the roof.

"Keep driving," said Karen. "It could be a trap." Chell rolled her eyes and pulled over the truck.

"Hi!" shouted Chell, waving.

The man took a moment to figure out where the noise was coming from and then waved enthusiastically back. "Come on in!" he shouted.

"I'll just stay by the truck," said Karen as Chell started walking to meet him.

There was a a tall fence around the farm with a complex looking lock on the gate, but giving it a gentle push revealed it to be unlocked. Chell surreptitiously knocked a weird looking garden gnome into the gap to make sure she didn't get locked in accidentally.

By the time she'd gotten halfway through the herb garden at the front of the property Karen had caught up to her. "Don't come running to me for sympathy if he kills us both," she said.

Chell ignored her and smiled at the man, who had crossed the field to meet them.

"Hi," she began. "We're hoping to go to Duluth, and were wondering..."

"Oh my God," he said, staring at them. "Karen, it's you!"

Karen stared at the man in shock.

"You don't remember me? Jeff Anderson, from Aperture. Your desk was right by my office!"

_Aperture_ thought Chell. _Run_. But they were stuck in the conversation now.

"Jeff, Jeff Anderson..." mused Karen, then her eyes widened. "Wait. Now I remember you. You're an AI tech. You helped transfer m...Caroline's consciousness to GlaDOS and made sure it didn't interfere with the primary functions."

"Right!" he said. "And...I mean I know it was a long time ago, but we went out for coffee a few times, remember?"

"Oh, yes, coffee," said Karen flatly. "How could I forget _that_."

"Wow, you haven't aged a day. It's funny, I remember your voice sounding different though..."

"So," said Chell, deciding this was a good time to take over the conversation. "Like I said, we were heading towards Duluth. Any advice for us before we get there? It's still there, right?"

"Last I checked!" laughed Jeff. "I don't go there much though. They're still on this whole human pride thing since the aliens left. Like us humans had anything to do with it, they just ran out of funding for the invasion. We're just lucky that portal didn't end up connecting to some really efficient alien empire with better funding." He turned to Karen with a smile. "Same old story right, remember when our section ran out of funding just as we were going to get that weapons contract with North Korea?"

Of _course_ the alien invasion had something to do with portals, thought Chell. This was probably all Cave Johnson's fault, somehow, for all that the man had been dead for decades.

"Darn those bureaucrats and their red tape," said Karen. Her tone was becoming increasingly bright and brittle and there was a dangerous sparkle in her eye.

"Still, I guess it was lucky, meant I was on unpaid leave when GlaDOS had that glitch and killed everyone. Though if they'd given the AI section better funding, maybe we would have caught that bug, right?"

"You never know! Or maybe she'd have done a better job of killing everyone," said Karen, laughing. The sound sent a chill up Chell's spine.

"Glad you guys had a chance to catch up, but let's go," said Chell. She grabbed Karen's arm. "You know how we have that _stuff_ we have to do in Duluth."

"Right," said Karen."The stuff. Can't forget the stuff. Bye Jeff, it was _so_ nice to see you again. And there I was so sure you were dead!"

"Aw, no, you can't go now," said Jeff.

"Sorry!" said Chell.

"No, I mean seriously," said Jeff, pulling out a weird looking organic device that looked unpleasantly like a gun. "You can't go now."

Chell groaned in frustration. Of course he had a gun.

"Cute isn't it?" said Jeff, still smiling, training the gun on Chell, who he clearly saw as the more intimidating of the two. "The aliens gave it to me for helping them understand human psychology. Packs a powerful wallop, too. Hate to have to use it on either of you."

"I'm sure," said Chell.

"It's nothing personal," explained Jeff. "If I could, I'd let you two ladies drive off to Duluth and wish you all the best. But I lost a lot of my notes when Aperture fell, and then I got distracted by the whole alien invasion thing. It's only in the last year or so that I've been able to really get back to my research." He sounded aggrieved.

"You poor thing, that must have been so frustrating," said Karen.

"It was! But now I nearly have my brain scanner working better than ever. A few more prototypes and I should be able to upload myself to the _internet_. How awesome would that be? And hey, if you're lucky you'll be uploaded successfully before you die and get to be on the internet too!"

"Wow!" said Karen. "Scanned into a computer! Imagine that!"

"I'll pass," said Chell.

"But Jeff..." said Karen. "Do you really want to do this? To me? What about all those good times we shared? Did all that... coffee mean nothing to you?"

"Sorry Karen," he said, stepping forward and patting her gently on the hand. "I hate to do this, I really do. And if you were a scientist I would absolutely let you work on it with me. But, well, you're just an administrative assistant."

"Oh Jeff," said Karen. She held onto his hand and drew closer towards him.

"Ah, Karen," said Jeff, "I...gurklltl..." He looked down in surprise at the knife sticking out of his chest. A spurt of blood shot out and hit Karen. She grinned.

"Never underestimate administrative assistants," said Karen, twisting the knife and then pulling it out and wiping it on her shirt. While Jeff was distracted Chell grabbed Jeff's other hand to stop him shooting the gun, twisting his arm behind his back and then prying the gun from his fingers. He fell to his knees and stared at her sadly, gurgling.

"Um. Sorry about this," said Chell. "Nothing personal."

He winced, gurgled once more, and collapsed to the ground, dead.

"Oh wow, I really killed him," said Karen.

"I know, it was amazing!" said Chell. "I was beginning to think we might actually die. Maybe you were right about the concealed weapons thing after all." She stuck the gun in her waistband. There'd be time to figure out how to shoot it later.

"But I killed him. I've never killed anyone with my bare hands before! It was..." She stared at her hands, which were spattered with blood. "Really not the same. I don't think I'll do it again."

"Good to hear," said Chell. "That's not a habit you should get back into."

"And you're talking to me again!" Karen gave a happy open smile somewhat at odds with her gory appearance.

"...yeah I guess I am," said Chell, with a sigh. "Thanks for saving my life."

"Hey, yeah, I saved your life! We're totally even now!"

"Not quite," said Chell. "But it's a start."

* * *

Rifling through Jeff's pockets revealed a packet of tobacco ("Nasty habit," Karen sniffed, disapprovingly), some crudely shaped money stamped New Republic of Michigan and the keys to the house. Looting from someone she'd helped kill instead of long dead invasion victims made Chell feel a little uncomfortable, but they were hardly going to make friends in Duluth if they arrived covered in blood.

"Does it bother you, that I killed him?" asked Karen, as they walked into Jeff's hallway. The painted wooden walls were covered in various old movie posters, some for movies Chell had never heard of. Pride of place on the mantlepiece was reserved for a battered photo of a younger Jeff smiling with some other scientists at Aperture. Almost afraid to look, Chell searched for the faces of her father or the original Karen, but saw neither. Karen flicked her eyes over the photo too, then looked away. "I know you have a fairly strong anti-murder policy, most of the time."

"When I was eight you killed an entire room full of people in front of me," said Chell, "Including my parents and several of my friends. You then tried to kill me on several occasions. Killing some creepy old guy in self defence? I can live with."

"I always forget that you make an exception for self defence," said Karen, as if it was some eccentric foible.

The first door they opened led to the kitchen. There was what looked like fresh bread and butter on the table, and Chell's stomach rumbled, but the stink of Jeff's blood would probably take the fun out of eating. The second door opened onto what looked like a cross between a computer lab and a dissection chamber. They shut that door quickly and moved on.

"Speaking of how we met..." said Karen. "Did I ever tell you I thought it was really clever, the way your parents worked together to get you in the mail slot? If they hadn't you'd have died too."

"Yeah, I know," said Chell. "They were good people."

"I'm sorry I killed them," said Karen. "And the others."

"I know," said Chell, "but thanks for saying it."

The next door turned out to be a cupboard. Chell grabbed some shirts to replace their own.

"I'm not sorry I killed Jeff though. He was a jackass."

"Yes, yes he was," said Chell. She pushed open the next door onto a surprisingly futuristic looking bathroom, complete with shower. "A clean jackass, though. Sweet."

The bathroom was glorious: clean white tiles, shining taps, and _running water_. Chell would have been happy enough just with that, but Jeff's shower had so many buttons and knobs it took a moment to even figure out how to start it. She wondered if all mad scientists had showers like this. There were even different settings for cleaning off different things, including pig manure, paint, and blood.

Chell pulled off her jacket and starting untying the laces on her boots. She wasn't as gross looking as Karen, but some of Jeff's blood had gotten on her as well, and just in general she felt unpleasantly sticky after several days walking in the sun. "I'm not sure how much hot water he'll have," said Chell. "We should shower together."

Karen blushed. "Really, Chell, at a time like this?"

Chell smiled innocently, or as close to innocently as she could manage. "Hey, I'm just trying to get clean here," she said. "You're the one making it sordid."

"Fine," said Karen. Chell hadn't thought she'd take much persuading.

After a few false starts where they barely avoided scalding or freezing themselves they managed to get the shower working at a nice temperature. Chell had _missed_ showers, washing in a lake or a bathtub you had to fill and heat yourself just wasn't the same.

And Karen looked great naked. Her pale skin was clear and smooth, and the water flowed seductively across her gentle curves. Chell overtly ran her eyes up Karen's body then looked into her eyes and grinned. "Can you pass the soap?"

"Here," said Karen, holding it out stiffly, her other arm crossed across her chest.

"Thanks," said Chell brightly. She thought about trying to clean herself ~seductively~, but that would probably involve _not_ cleaning her underarms, and they really needed the wash. She was just going to have to rely on her natural attractiveness and Karen's barely repressed lesbian tendencies. It was about time her breasts did something useful beyond getting in the way of finding comfortable clothes that fit.

Chell finished rinsing what she hoped was shampoo out of her hair and looked over at Karen. She was facing the other way. Good thing Chell hadn't wasted energy trying to be sexy.

Chell sighed and stepped out of the shower onto the mesh covered floor of the bathroom. Just as she was realising that she was going to have to have to use one of Jeff's towels (eww) a jet of warm air shot from the ceiling and started drying her off.

"Hooray for Aperture ingenuity," she said. For an AI researcher Jeff had put a lot of effort into his bathroom, obviously the guy had _really_ valued being clean. Not that Chell was complaining.

She happily stood in the hot air stream, slowly turning around to make sure she dried evenly.

Karen made a small inarticulate sound behind her. Chell turned again. Karen was standing stock still, staring at her with a slack jawed expression.

Chell felt herself flush. "Something you want?" she said.

"I...uh...I was admiring the design of the bathroom," said Karen, quickly looking up towards the ceiling. "Very efficient. I think he stole some of the technology from Aperture."

Chelled rolled her eyes and started to get dressed.

Just as Chell was retying her shoelaces, Karen said "I, uh...was thinking I might stay here, let you go on ahead. It's a nice house, and I know you'd rather I..."

"Dammit Karen!" said Chell. She brushed her hair out of her eyes and glared at her. "Why would I bring you all this way then leave you alone in some creepy farmhouse?" Karen looked back at Chell when she spoke, her eyes naturally trending downwards, then she pointedly looked away. "And why are you pretending not to be interested in me? We both know it isn't true!" Karen opened her mouth to reply and Chell held up a cautioning finger. "And don't say it's the age gap: sure in some ways you're like a hundred years older than me, but in others I'm like forty years older than you. And it's a bit late to start treating me like a child."

Karen glared at her for a moment before making another attempt to reply. "I"m _trying_ to be a better person here and you're making it _difficult_," she said. She crossed her arms and looked away. "I'm doing you a favour, the least you can do is be grateful."

"Grateful?" said Chell. "For what, rejecting me?"

"For saving you from me!" said Karen. "I have come to...care about you. And that means I want you to be happy. More than I want you to be with me, and I want that...a great deal." She was still drying herself under the fan, the downward pressure of the air adding to her downtrodden expression. "You deserve better than me," she said. "I wanted to be selfish and keep you to myself, but you've helped me learn to be better than that. You're going to be meeting people soon, real people, not constructed...abominations like me. I don't want you to feel trapped, like you have to stay with me, when you could..."

Chell stepped towards her, the warm air making her hair dance. She put her hand on Karen's shoulder. "Karen," she said. Karen turned away, but Chell grabbed her with both hands and pulled her close.

"Karen," repeated Chell. "All this time, all the things you've done to me and you still haven't learned?" She leaned closer, her mouth by Karen's ear, speaking over the whine of the fan. "You can't keep me anywhere I don't want to be. I am stronger, faster, and smarter than you. I made you as much as you made me and you couldn't control me if you tried."

She gave Karen a brief kiss on the lips. Karen blinked at her. "But I..."

"Now hurry up and get dressed," said Chell. "I want to get to Duluth before nightfall."

And then she walked out the bathroom door towards the kitchen, knowing without looking that Karen would follow.


	7. Chapter 7

Karen stared sadly at the locked door to the police car and pulled fruitlessly at her handcuffed hands behind her back. "It's at times like this that I wish I was still a giant robot."

She turned to Chell. "You're good at breaking out of things. Got any ideas?"

"Not unless you've got a portal gun hidden on you somewhere," said Chell.

Karen sighed and rested her head back on the seat. "If only," she said. "Two of the greatest minds the world has ever known and we're trapped behind a _mechanical lock_."

Chell raised her eyebrows but didn't argue with Karen's assessment of their mental superiority. In that direction lay only frustration and long semantic arguments about the precise meaning of the word _greatest_.

The two police officers who'd captured them didn't seem to be paying any attention to what Karen was saying, too focussed on driving and listening to the police radio. When the radio wasn't buzzing the car was eerily quiet, there was none of the engine noise she'd have expected. Before they'd been put in the back seat Chell had noticed some sort of unfamiliar technology retrofitted to the base of the vehicle, probably salvaged alien tech. It made Chell nervous. Even beyond the fact that they'd been arrested, there was a strong association in her mind between advanced technology and people trying to kill her.

Her eye was caught by a flash of sunlight glinting off a tall building, a twisted alien structure of glass and ceramic towering over the shops and houses lining the suburban street. The tower had been roughly hacked and painted to replace alien words and symbols with human ones. Despite everything Chell's heart lifted every time they passed signs of life, whether it be someone walking their dog or even just fresh litter on the streets. The city was _alive_. Marked by signs of battle and deprivation, and not exactly friendly right now, but alive.

Karen followed Chell's gaze out the window. She looked rather less impressed, and shifted her gaze back to glare at the police officers in front of them. "What kind of post apocalyptic society even _cares_ about speeding? Don't they have more important things to worry about?"

"It wasn't speeding that got us arrested," said Chell. "That's just what got us pulled over. It was the lack of identification that made them suspicious. And I don't think we were _really_ in trouble until you started shouting 'Hey officer, look in the back of our truck, it has a bunch of stolen property in it from the guy we just murdered'."

"That is the _precise opposite_ of what I said!"

"Yes," said Chell with a sigh. "Exactly."

* * *

Chell couldn't sleep. The police station cell was not well heated and the lightly padded bench made for a poor bed. She curled up against the wall and tried not to think about the way the police officers had looked at her. Like she was a criminal. Like it was only a matter of time before she was sent to trial, and then to jail. Before she was a prisoner again.

She looked down at her hands and noticed that they were shaking. She took a deep breath and tried to calm her nerves. She would get out of this. She'd gotten through worse. She just had to sit tight, tell the truth and hope the New Republic of Minnesota looked kindly upon self defence (accessory to self defence?). And hey, maybe she'd be lucky. Maybe they'd get the death penalty and it would all be over soon.

It was never a good sign when she started wishing for death. Being locked up again was doing a number on her head. Chell found herself missing Karen intensely, though she was only a few feet away in the next cell. She even found herself missing the companion cube, though it had been months since she'd even thought of it. She wondered if it was still sitting in the field where she'd been forced to leave it during her escape from Aperture. She hoped it hadn't gotten damaged out there in the sun and rain.

Was she _crying_? Ok this wasn't healthy. Chell decided to give up on sleep and stood up, wiping her eyes and forcing herself to concentrate on her breath. She tried to forget the four walls enclosing her and her uncertain fate, focusing her mind on the motion of her hands and the angle of her legs as she started stretching and going through her exercises as she had so many times before.

And what if she did go to prison? There were other people in prison. There were books and educational courses, exercise yards and secure cells. She'd be safe there, as long as she didn't get on anyone's bad side. Safe and looked after. Just not free.

Chell wiped her eyes again, and kept moving.

She was facing towards the back wall, her arms above her head, when she head the lock in the door behind her click open. She slowly turned around.

"Hey!" whispered a voice. "Look who just figured out how to pick a lock!"

"Karen," said Chell, in surprise, and then stepped towards her. Karen was an indistinct shape in the shadow of the door, but there was no mistaking her voice.

"Anyone could have done it," said Karen. "Well, anyone with extremely high intelligence and the foresight to wear extra long hairpins. It's like they _want_ people to..." Her voice was muffled as Chell pulled her into a hug.

Karen stiffened. "Sorry," said Chell. "I just..."

"It's alright," said Karen. She put her arms around Chell and kissed the shoulder where her head lay. Her hands were shaking a little too. Chell was reminded that she wasn't the only one who'd escaped imprisonment at Aperture. She gave Karen a squeeze and felt her soften against her. A tightness in Chell unfurled and she could feel her heart slowing down. "It's alright," repeated Karen. "I've opened the door now, we're free."

"No, we're not," said Chell, though she didn't leave the warmth of Karen's arms. "They took our photographs. And they have our truck, and all our things. We have to stay and prove our innocence." It was bad enough that Karen's escape from her cell had probably been recorded on security camera, but there was nothing they could do about that.

"But you _confessed_," said Karen. "What were you thinking? I had a fantastic alibi figured out, you should have trusted me to take care of it. Now our only chance is to escape. I thought you'd be on board with this. Escaping is what you do best!"

Chell shook her head. "Not this time," she said. "You can leave if you want, but I'm staying."

Karen shook her head. "No," she said. "I can't leave you. I tried before and...and I just _can't_." This was the first time she'd referenced their conversation in Jeff's bathroom since they'd left his house.

"Good," said Chell.

* * *

Chell still couldn't sleep. She was warmer now, Karen was a gently snoring comforter curled against her on the narrow bench, but her mind still kept going in circles and she couldn't get comfortable. She tried shifting to relieve the pressure of her and Karen's combined weight against her shoulder and was rewarded with pins and needles along her side and a quiet sound of protest from Karen. "Shh," said Chell, and gently ran her hand across the smooth fall of Karen's bangs across her forehead. "Hmm," said Karen happily. It was a comfort having her here.

Just as she was sure that Karen was asleep and Chell had started falling back into thoughts about mandatory sentencing and prison food, Karen shifted and said "Chell."

"Mmm?" said Chell.

"Why are you awake?"

Chell let out a ragged sigh. She didn't want to lie, but she really wasn't in the mood for talking. "I don't..." She looked away, though Karen's eyes were almost invisible in the darkness. "Bad memories. Bad thoughts." She rested her head against the wall and closed her eyes.

"I'm sorry," said Karen, tightening her arms around Chell.

"Mmm," said Chell.

Karen's head lay against Chell's stomach, and the soft breath of her words pressed against Chell's skin. "Why don't you hate me?"

"I don't know," said Chell.

For a while there was silence, nothing but the sound of their bodies reflecting off the narrow walls of the cell.

"I wish I could undo everything," said Karen.

Chell let herself briefly imagine it. Her parents alive. A normal adolescence, then moving on to college or a job. Friends, family, a _life_. Caroline dying calmly of old age, decades gone. No GlaDOS, no Aperture, no Karen. None of this.

But then Chell herself would have been an entirely different person. The kind of person who would probably have died in the alien invasion, terrified and powerless in the face of circumstances beyond her control.

"That's not how it works," said Chell. She took a deep breath. "I'll be ok. Go back to sleep."

"No," said Karen.

"Fine," said Chell.

There was a squeak of fabric against plastic as Karen shifted to rest her head back in Chell's lap.

"If there's anything I can do, let me know. If you want to talk, I'll listen," said Karen.

"I don't want to talk," said Chell.

They didn't speak for a while after that. Chell stared into space unsuccessfully trying to ignore the awareness that Karen was staring up at her. The feeling of Karen's body against hers was a solid warmth that made Chell feel comforted and irritated at the same time.

"You really want to help?" said Chell.

"Yes," said Karen.

"Have sex with me," said Chell. "I need the distraction." Karen let out a choked cough and Chell immediately regretted saying it. "...or we could talk," she added, reluctantly. "Just not about anything serious, ok?"

Karen sat up and looked at Chell. She shifted closer and slowly put her hand on Chell's neck. Her fingers were cold.

Was she actually going to kiss her? Chell had just being trying to yank her chain.

Karen's thumb brushed against Chell's jugular. "If I pressed down here long enough," she said, exerting a gentle pressure, "you would die."

Chell opened her mouth to complain about Karen's choice of distraction, but it _was_ distracting. All apprehensive thoughts about the future had vanished, her mind focussed with crystal clarity on Karen's fingers. So Chell just let out a half laugh. Karen moved her hand up to Chell's face and leaned closer. Her thumb brushed the underside of Chell's lower eyelid and Chell resisted the urge to blink.

"If I pressed here at the right angle I could pop out your eyeball," said Karen.

"You could try," said Chell.

"Do you want me to?" asked Karen, her breath soft against Chell's lips.

"No..." began Chell, and then Karen kissed her.

Karen wasn't desperate and needy like last time, but slow and deliberate. Her lips were soft and dry, brushing at first softly and then with a subtle insistent pressure against Chell's. Chell opened her lips slightly and leaned into the kiss, putting a hand on Karen's knee. Karen put her hand on top of Chells, her fingers lightly grasping her wrist, while her other hand cradled Chell's neck. Karen sucked at Chell's tongue and pushed her slowly backwards until her back was flush against the wall, the hand against Chell's neck shifting downwards to grab and push at her shoulder. Chell was well and truly pinned. _Escape_ said a voice in her head. She could feel her heart beating faster.

"Mmph," said Chell, disengaging from the kiss. Karen slowly pulled her mouth away before leaning back in to give her a soft close-mouthed kiss and then look questioningly into Chell's eyes. Chell didn't know how to express what she wanted to say so just stared back. "I..." Karen waited, then ran the hand on Chell's wrist up towards her other shoulder and then down to her side, brushing so softly over Chell's breast Chell could barely feel it then tightening around Chell's side.

Having decided that Chell obviously wasn't going to say anything, Karen leaned her head down to kiss Chell's neck. "You taste..." she began.

"If you say _like cinnamon_ we are _done_," said Chell.

"Like skin," said Karen. "And sweat."

_That would be all the fear_ thought Chell.

Karen pushed her hand between Chell and the wall and made a practiced motion with her fingers. Chell felt a sudden loosening of pressure around her chest. "Oh look," said Karen, her teeth subtly bared in a predatory grin, "your underwear seems to be malfunctioning. We should remove it." She ran her fingernails down the skin of Chell's back and Chell shivered.

As Karen leaned in to kiss her again Chell put her hand on Karen's chest. "Let me go," she said.

Karen took in a sharp breath, and her hands tightened for a moment before she pulled away, letting Chell's body go and shifting across the bench so that no part of them was touching. She crossed her arms, her fingers tensing into fists. "I thought you wanted this," she said.

"I did," said Chell. She rubbed her face and tried to collect her thoughts. Her skin ached with an awareness of Karen's touch and it's absence. "...I do. I just...needed to know you'd let me go."

"Always," said Karen, but there was something in her voice like regret.

Chell looked at Karen, curled up away from Chell like she was too hot to touch.

"You don't want to, though, do you?" asked Chell softly. "You want to hold me down and watch me struggle."

Karen turned her head away quickly and made a sound somewhere between a sob and a groan. "I told you I was a monster," she said, head hanging low. "You should have left me to face the police alone."

"No, I shouldn't," said Chell. "We discussed this already."

Karen's fists tightened.

"You think it's just you who's fucked up?" said Chell. "I thought about killing you when I had you tied up in my bed, for what you did to me and to my family. But at the same time I kept thinking about how I wanted to do this..." She reached up to cup Karen's breast in her hand and Karen went very still. Chell shuffled closer, pressing her chest against Karen's side. Karen turned her head to stare at her silently as Chell shifted her hand onto Karen's stomach. "And this..." said Chell, not taking her eyes from Karen as she shifted her hand lower still. Chell had no idea what she was doing, and couldn't feel much apart from the warm pressure of Karen's thighs and the seam of her pants, but Karen's eyes fluttered closed and her breath quickened. Chell shifted her hand and Karen gave a small moan, almost as if she was in pain. Chell thought of the many times she'd heard a moan like that before, from turrets and Caroline and all the pieces of GlaDOS's personality as Chell had thrown them into the fire. She pressed harder.

Karen put her hand on Chell's, and for a moment Chell thought she might pull it away, but she just rested it there, her thumb rubbing against the delicate veins above Chell's palm.

Chell leaned her head towards Karen's, lightly kissing her mouth, her cheek, her neck. She tasted of salt and skin. Chell pushed her hand up beneath Karen's sweater, but her shirt was too tightly tucked into her pants to pull out with one hand, and the two button clasp on her pants was too complex to figure out in the dark and from this angle.

Without moving, Chell said "If I stop will you let me start again?"

Karen opened her eyes and looked at Chell. "Yes," she said.

Chell grabbed both sides of Karen's sweater and pulled it up over her head, dropping it on the ground. She could see Karen shivering and so only tugged Karen's shirt out of her pants before letting it fall back down to cover her. Chell leaned close again, her hands sliding up to touch Karen's skin. Her back was warm and smooth, her stomach soft and round. Chell had to think for a moment about how to undo a bra from this angle, but the sense of satisfaction as she felt Karen's breasts fall free was deeply gratifying.

She carefully slid her hand under the cup of Karen's bra to cover her breast. She could feel Karen's nipple, small and firm against the calloused skin of her palm, goosebumps and little hairs tickling the ends of her fingers.

Karen lifted her hand to Chell's cheek and let out a sigh. "Ah. You are so beautiful," she said, running her fingers across Chell's face.

"It's not like you can see me in this light," said Chell.

"I don't need to see you to know you're beautiful," said Karen, her hands cold and hungry as they reached under Chell's shirt. "I've always known."

They kissed, and Chell lost track of time.

At some point something made Chell come back to herself with a jarring shiver. A sound from beyond the cell, perhaps, or her body reacting to the cold. She remembered where she was, and what she was doing. Somewhere along the way they'd both lost the top half of their clothing and Chell's pants had fallen down to pool around her knees, one leg holding her up off the floor while Karen kneeled astride the other, kissing her way down Chell's stomach.

Karen looked up at Chell's shiver. The faint light of the fluorescent bulb made her look like an old monochrome photograph of herself fading into black.

"Come up here," said Chell.

"Whatever you need," said Karen then awkwardly crawled up to lie on top of Chell.

Chell put an arm around her and buried her head in Karen's hair with a sigh. "I'm really glad you're here," she said.

Karen kissed her neck. "Good," she said.

* * *

Chell woke to the sound of the light in the ceiling flickering to it's brighter daylight setting and the heavily bolted television in the wall beginning to cycle through it's program. In the hour or two it had run last night she had seen the full cycle three times, and if she wanted to Chell could have sung along to the Duluth Police Department official theme song and recited the number to ring in case of alien sightings.

Instead she covered her eyes with her forearm and tried to let herself wake up more slowly.

Karen had snuck back to her cell last night but Chell could still smell her on her fingers and she ached in all sorts of interesting ways (and some less interesting ones. This bench really was terrible to sleep on) _The things I learned last night will be useful in prison_ Chell mused darkly but the thought didn't bother her like it had before. In fact, despite everything, Chell felt _fantastic_. She was probably just riding high on a temporary wave of endorphins and oxytocin but she wasn't going to complain.

So that was sex, huh. Not bad. And Karen had been...Chell found herself smiling soppily and thinking sentimental thoughts about how great Karen was.

Yes. She was _definitely_ high on oxytocin.

The children of Lester Park Elementary School were going through their second reenactment of the heroic defeat of the alien invaders by human ingenuity and grit by the time there was a knock on the door and a tray of breakfast slid into the room.

It was some highly processed combination of eggs and beans, but there was something deeply appealing about food she'd had no part in preparing and Chell chewed the bland yellow-grey slop with enthusiasm.

Her good mood lasted her all the way to the interview with the police sergeant in charge of the investigation.

The room she was being interviewed in had seen better days. Stains on the wall had been covered over with paint of slightly the wrong colour and Chell's chair wobbled underneath her as she sat down. The sergeant looked tired, and her chair wobbled too. She stared searchingly at Chell over a neatly clipped plastic folder full of papers. Behind them was a tall window looking out over the patchy brown lawn at the front of the station. "Says here you're Chell Garcia."

"Yes."

The sergeant raised one eyebrow. "Aged forty one years old." She looked to be in her late thirties, over a decade older than Chell yet born several years later.

"Yes. Technically."

"And the reason you've been gone from our systems for twenty years is that you were..." the sergeant read further through the previous officer's notes. "...in cryogenic suspension. At this _Aperture Science Enrichment Centre_ on the Upper Peninsula."

"Yes," said Chell, trying to sound sincere.

The sergeant gave a little nod and took her statement in stride. Did she actually believe Chell's story? _Chell_ wouldn't believe Chell's story if she'd heard it from someone else. Then again, who knew what weird things this woman had seen in the last few years.

"You know, you're not the first person we've had come through the station claiming to be from this Aperture Science Enrichment Centre. I looked it up, and there's reports dating back to the sixties, people making crazy claims about being forced to make magical portals that let you jump through walls, and blue paint that makes you bouncy. Any of that sound familiar?"

"Yes," said Chell. "Very."

"And you say this Jeff Anderson was one of the scientists working there, doing these experiments on people. That's a pretty big coincidence, you happening upon him like that."

"Yes, it was."

"Hmm." The sergeant sipped at her coffee. Chell wished she'd been offered some."Tell me again what happened."

"I was driving down the road with Karen..."

"That's Ms Karen Smith. Aged fifty eight." One thing Karen and Chell had agreed on was that it was better to _not_ explain the full story of Karen's origins. The truth was outlandish enough as it was. That and the police might not be open to complex moral arguments about just how much choice GlaDOS had had about murdering all those people.

"...yes. And then we saw Mr Anderson waving at us. We went over to say hi. He invited us inside, but then he tried to threaten us. He had a gun."

"The alien weapon we found in Ms Smith's possession."

"Yes. We took it...later. After he threatened us I found a knife and picked it up, there was a struggle...and then he was dead. I don't know which of us stabbed him. It's possible he fell on the knife." Chell's hope was that that if the police couldn't tell which of she and Karen had stabbed Jeff then they wouldn't be able to successfully charge either of them. She wasn't sure the law worked that way but it was worth a shot. Chell had tried explaining the logic of this approach to Karen but she had remained unconvinced. "Then we washed ourselves off in his shower and took some of his things. We were desperate, it's...hard, up on the peninsula. Everyone is dead." Chell tried to look vulnerable, but felt like she only managed to look constipated.

The sergeant opened a new file, and pulled out a piece of paper, carefully holding it so that Chell couldn't read it. "Well Ms Smith says something different. Not about the peninsula, I believe you about that..."

Chell winced. After Chell had confessed the previous day Karen had started shouting that nothing Chell said should be trusted, that she had a history of paranoid delusions and probably had brain damage. (Which was true, but hardly relevant)

"Karen is just trying to protect me," said Chell. "She means well."

"I'm sure she does," said the sergeant. "As a rule, when prisoners try to break out of one our cells they don't usually plan on locking themselves back up again afterwards."

The sergeant stared at her levelly and Chell felt her face flushing. Of course there'd been security cameras. Did last night count as collusion?

"Right," she said, keeping her tone flat.

The sergeant blinked at her, the hint of a smile at the corner of her lips, then continued. "Now Miss Smith _has_ changed her story from yesterday. She no longer claims to have amnesia, or that Mr Anderson stabbed himself in front of the two of you after luring you into his house with offers of cake and icecream." For someone who lied so often Karen really wasn't very good at it. "She now largely corroborates your story, except for one detail: she says that it was she who stabbed Mr Anderson, and that you had nothing to do with it."

"Oh," said Chell.

"Are you now going to claim that it was _you_ who stabbed him?" asked the sergeant, as if it was a question of mild academic interest.

Was she? Was Chell willing to sacrifice herself for Karen? She would certainly cope with prison a lot better, Karen would probably pick a fight with the guards on the first day.

"Would you believe me?" asked Chell.

The sergeant sighed. "Not really," she said.

"Then no," said Chell. "I stand by my story. Karen is lying to protect me."

"Possibly," said the sergeant. She frowned at Chell. And then shook her head.

"You know, I've seen some messed up stuff in my time. Back when the aliens were in charge...it was pretty horrific. I thought nothing could shock me any more." She sipped her coffee again and looked out the window at the sickly trees lining the building, and the invasion scarred city beyond. "But then I saw inside that Anderson's lab. It's one things when aliens do it, but humans experimenting on other humans...that's sick."

"Yes," said Chell.

The sergeant gave a grim smile. "Still, we've been digging around, and it looks like we'll finally be able to solve some old missing person cases that have been open for years. Mr Anderson had been pretty busy. You two are lucky you managed to escape."

"Yes."

The sergeant closed the file and tented her fingers, leaning towards Chell with a serious expression.

"Look, I don't know which of you two stabbed Mr Anderson, but the way I see it either way you were doing this city a favour. If I let you go, do you promise to try not to kill anyone else?"

"We'll do our absolute best," said Chell.

The sergeant nodded and tilted her head at one of her officers and then towards the room where Karen was being held after being questioned. "Let these two go," she said. "We've got too much important police business waiting to waste time hounding a couple of innocent people for speeding."

* * *

The sun was warm and welcome on Chell's skin. She walked slowly back towards the truck, enjoying the breeze and looking at the two new IDs the sergeant had given her. One listed her actual birth year, while the other said she'd been born twenty one years ago. "Less questions that way," the sergeant had said "But still lets you buy alcohol.". Karen had tried to haggle her stated age from 26 down to 24 with no success.

"What reasonable people," said Karen, counting out the money the police had given them along with advice on how to best settle into town. "Maybe there's hope for human civilisation after all."

"Not that I'm complaining, but I'm not sure letting confessed killers go because you don't like the person they murdered is all that civilised," said Chell. "Not to mention giving a minor a fake ID."

"Then you have a flawed definition of civilisation," said Karen.

Chell turned to look at Karen. Her pale cheeks were flushed a pretty pink and a lock of her hair had been swept across her face in the breeze. Chell put her arm around Karen's shoulder and looked out at their new home. Large chunks of Duluth had been demolished during the war and occupation, but the city was filled with scaffolding around new construction, and the remaining vacant lots bustled with market stalls and community gardens, brightly dressed people talking happily to each other and walking from place to place. There was a cheerfully painted sign on the sidewalk asking passers by to sign a petition to return the unpopulated regions of the state to American Indian hands. The people of Earth had been bowed, but not broken.

"Maybe I do," she said, and smiled.


End file.
